Top 5 Bank Stocks To Watch Right Now

Stocks rose this week as earnings from JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Bank of America (BAC), and Citigroup (C) came in better-than expected.

Associated Press

The S&P 500 rose 1.6% to 2,080.73 this week after falling 0.1% today, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.8% to 17,897.46 this week after dropping 0.2% today. The Nasdaq Composite advanced 1.8% to 4,938.22 this week after declining 0.2% today.

JPMorgan Chase gained 7.2% to $61.87 this week, while Bank of America rose 8.7% to $14, and Citigroup jumped 11% to $44.92. All three met or beat earnings forecasts this week (though there actual numbers were pretty terrible).

Despite the gains, the S&P 500 is still down 2.4% from its all-time high hit on May 21, 2015. Still, the folks at Bespoke Investment Group argue that the popular benchmark might be stronger than it looks:

For example, Evergrande Life – a unit of property developer China Evergrande Group (OTC:EGRNF) – saw its premiums increase more than 40-fold in 2016. It used the proceeds to accumulate a significant stake in rival developer China Vanke (OTC:CVKEY) last year.

Santa Clara, California-basedNVIDIA Corporation(NASDAQ:NVDA) reported its Q4 2017 earnings after the bell yesterday (Feb 9). The company soared past analyst estimates, as per expectations outlined in our NVIDIA earnings preview, delivering non-GAAP EPS of $1.13, a 30 cent beat over analyst expectations. However, Nvidia stock was down by 1.88% in after-hours trade, following the earnings announcement. Is it time to sell NVIDIA stock or an opportunity to accumulate the stock on the cheap?

[By Andrew Tonner]

Any and all income-seeking investors need to remember this phrase: Not all dividends are created equal. Shares of high-flying graphics semiconductor company NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) are a perfect example of this maxim in practice.

[By WWW.THESTREET.COM]

Intel Is Getting Serious About Self-Driving Cars, But It’s Not All Smooth Roads Ahead The chip giant’s (INTC) deals with Delphi and BMW are proof it’s taking the autonomous driving market seriously. But Nvidia (NVDA) and Qualcomm (QCOM) /NXP (NXPI) present stiff competition. Full story

[By Sreekanth Anasa]

AMD Radeon RX 500 Series Vega GPU will be previewed at the company’sCapsaicin & Cream event, part of the GDC 2017 on Feb 28th. With its latest 14nm graphics architecture Vega,AMD has made the most incremental step forward in the last 5 years in terms of architecture tweaking. The latest leaks and reports about Vega GPUs suggest this could be the fastest GPU that the chipmaker has ever built and would give NVIDIA’s(NASDAQ:NVDA) GTX 1080 GPU a run for its money. AMD had disclosed a host of new details about the Polaris graphics architecture RX 400 series (unreleased then)during its last yearCapsaicin event in March, a similar thing about Vega GPUs cannot be rolled out. With Vega GPU leaks already suggesting impressive results, the latest Vega sneak-peek could potentially drive AMD stock much higher.

[By Virendra Singh Chauhan]

Santa Clara, California-based NVIDIA Corporation(NASDAQ:NVDA) reported its Q4 FY 2017 earnings last week. As reported in our NVIDIAEarnings review, the company reported a strong set of numbers across various metrics while also guiding over Wall Street estimates for the next quarter. However, the NVDA stock sold off following the earnings announcement, closing the last trading session (Feb 10) at $113.62, down by 2.37% over the previous close. Investors could be lured into booking profits, given the massive run NVIDIA stock price has seen over the last one year; NVDA stock is up by 342% in the last 12 months. Instead, long-term investors should continue to buy more and use this post-earningsdip to accumulate NVIDIA stock on the cheap. Here is why NVDA stock could be headed higher over the longer term.

Research and development is the lifeblood of biotech companies. The potential for new drugs also serves as a primary factor driving biotech stocks higher and higher. That’s been the case for Celgene (NASDAQ:CELG), Ionis Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:IONS), and Ligand Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:LGND).

Top 5 Bank Stocks To Watch Right Now: Packaging Corporation of America(PKG)

Advisors’ Opinion:

[By Paul Ausick]

Stocks on the move: Boise Inc. (NYSE: BZ) is up 26% at $12.55 following the companys acquisition by Packaging Corporation of America Inc. (NYSE: PKG) for $12.55 a share ($1.28 billion). Omeros Corp. (NASDAQ: OMER) is up 68.2% at $8.56 following an analyst upgrade. Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. (NYSEArca: NAK) is down 33.3% at $1.48 following an announcement from Anglo American plc that it was withdrawing from a massive copper mining project in Alaska.

[By Christopher Freeburn]

Shares of Packaging Corp. (PKG) jumped almost 13% in pre-market trading on Monday after the company announced that it will purchase a rival containerboard-maker.

Jefferies announced on Monday that it has upgraded Packaging Corp of America (PKG) from “Hold” to “Buy.”

The firm also raised PKG’s price target from $49.00 to $70.00. Jefferies analystPhilip Ng also gave the companybull-case scenario target of $88. The upgrade comes after the firm announced earlier today that it has agreed to purchase all outstanding shares of Boise Inc. (BZ)for $1.995 billion. Analyst Ng believes the new acquisition will result in an attractive multiple.

Packaging Corp of America shares rallied 9.73% during Monday’s session. Year-to-date, the stock is up 39.87%.

[By Ben Levisohn]

Packaging Corp. of America(PKG) has jumped 6.3% to $57.99 after it said it would buy Boise (BZ) for $1.28 billion. Boise has gained 26% to $12.55.

PNC Financial Services Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Marriott International Inc (NASDAQ:MAR) by 207.7% during the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 1,000,670 shares of the company’s stock after bu

There have been some macroeconomic signs that America's housing boom is starting to show signs of fatigue, but those figures haven't really shown up in the earnings reports of most homebuilders. The one exception is Beazer Homes USA (NYSE:BZH). While most companies are still showing strong home

Sturm Ruger & Company Inc (NYSE:RGR) announced a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, August 1st, RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Friday, August 17th will be paid a dividend of 0.34 per share on Friday, August 31st. This represents a $1.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividen